The Weekly Wrap: Feb. 13 - Feb. 19

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The Weekly Wrap walks readers through the last seven days in
MMA, recapping and putting into context the week's top story,
important news and notable quotes.

Top Story

Just about everything was going right as the Ultimate Fighting
Championship marched toward its debut in Australia this
Saturday.

UFC 110 sold out the 16,500-seat Acer Arena in Sydney in a
matter of hours, the second-fastest sellout in company history.
Demand was so high that tickets are being offered for a
closed-circuit broadcast of the event in a ballroom near the arena.
And the card, which will air on free television in Australia,
gained some late steam from event-week trash talk between co-main
eventers Michael
Bisping and Wanderlei
Silva. Local fan enthusiasm was such that UFC President Dana
White said the company was considering making Australia an annual
stop.

But, as has been the case frequently for the UFC in recent months,
there were some last-minute curveballs. Two fighters pulled out of
the card late this week, including one of the Australia natives,
Elvis
Sinosic, brought in for local appeal. Sinosic, a Sydney native
set to face fellow Aussie Chris
Haseman in a rematch of a 1997 bout, suffered a shoulder
injury. The fight was spotlighted in local promotion, including
during Thursday’s UFC press conference. A replacement was not
brought in for Haseman. It was to be Sinosic’s first UFC fight
since 2007 and Haseman’s first since 2002.

Also falling off the card was Ben
Rothwell, who bowed out of his fight with Mirko "Cro
Cop" Filipovic due an unspecified illness. The heavyweight tilt
was perhaps the third-most anticipated bout on the card. The UFC
brought in Sinosic campmate and light heavyweight Anthony
Perosh, who lost to Jeff Monson
and Christian
Wellisch in two 2006 Octagon appearances, to face Cro Cop, who
has a following among Croatians in Australia. But the head-kick
legend apparently won’t come in unscathed, either. The Croatian Web
site MMAAxiom.com reported Friday that Cro Cop received a cut above
the eye in pre-fight sparring. The report said Cro Cop would still
attempt to fight, but it’s not clear if a doctor will clear
him.

The cancellations came less than a week after the UFC
112 main event had to be patched together after Vitor
Belfort pulled out of his title fight against Anderson
Silva on April 10. Demian Maia,
who himself needed medical clearance for a cut near the eye
suffered in his Feb. 6 fight, was tapped for the title fight.

The event-week marketing train rolled, however, with the UFC
generating plenty of mainstream press in Australia -- though less
MMA Web site coverage due to the long flight -- in the days leading
up to the event. Though Spike TV will not air a live preliminary
fight special prior to Saturday’s card, which begins Sunday morning
in Australia but airs in the typical 10 p.m. EST slot in the
states, the network did air a
“Countdown” special Thursday night that drew a healthy average
of 635,000 viewers for its first airing, according to
MMAPayout.com.

The special, which highlighted the Cain
Velasquez vs. Antonio
Rodrigo Nogueira main event and the Michael
Bisping vs. Wanderlei
Silva fight, focused more on the fighters’ strategies and
training than biographical sketches. Nogueira was shown sharpening
his wrestling with NCAA National Champion Mark Munoz,
while Velasquez worked his jiu-jitsu with Dave Camarillo, who
termed fighting submission master Nogueira on the floor as a game
of millimeters. Camarillo said the fight will be the biggest for
the American Kickboxing Academy since Jon Fitch
challenged Georges
St. Pierre in 2007. Velasquez getting dropped by Cheick Kongo
last year was played up vis-Ã -vis Nogueira’s boxing, with
Camarillo saying it “will be a short night for us if (Velasquez)
makes those kinds of mistakes.”

Friction was appreciably higher in the Silva-Bisping feature.
Bisping’s Wolfslair Academy coach Anthony McGann rolled his eyes in
response to some of Silva’s self-referential statements, saying
"It's just the same s--- over and over again: a great knockout for
my fans.” McGann said Silva’s game is not evolving and that his
punches aren’t the hardest things in the world to avoid. The sour
feelings carried over into Thursday’s press conference, as Bisping
and Silva sniped at each after Silva said of Bisping: “Nobody likes
him.” Silva’s personal life was highlighted on the “Countdown”
special, showing him with his family and son and in his new Wand
Fight Team gym in Las Vegas. It also went into the facial surgery
Silva had to shave down bone, remove facial scar tissue and open up
his nasal passages to counteract severe snoring. The surgery caused
an eight-month layoff, the longest of Silva’s 13-year career.

The card will air on Australia’s OneHD sports network for free on
Sunday morning and afternoon in Australia. The UFC’s eye was
trained on the country in part because DVD sales were exceptionally
high there. UFC programming on Australian television draws some
500,000 viewers weekly, said Marshall Zelaznik, the UFC U.K.
president.

All fighters made weight Friday night, which was Saturday afternoon
in Australia.